This book is a comprehensive study of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas within its cultural and historical context. It covers contemporary performance practice and its reception throughout history, while examining the various sources that postdate the first performance. The book also offers a useful reference section with critical discography and appendices on national premieres and editions. Recommended for opera enthusiasts, scholars and students interested in English opera history.

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Although it takes little more than an hour to perform, Purcell's Dido and Aeneas stands as the greatest operatic achievement of seventeenth-century England. This book demonstrates the opera's deep roots in the theatrical and musical traditions of its day, summarizing the cultural climate inwhich the opera was composed and analyzing Nahum Tate's libretto in light of seventeenth-century English music text conventions. Harris also evaluates the surviving sources, comparing them with the original libretto, and discusses the work's performance history and critical reception from the firstperformance through the revivals of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

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